Monday, December 31, 2007

Thanksgiving Feast

November 27, 2007

Thanks for the DearElder Package. I got it today, and now we have so much food in our room. Speaking of tons of food, Thanksgiving was awesome. Jeffrey R. Holland came and gave us a devotional in the morning. It was really great, he's such a good speaker. For lunch we had our all-you-can eat Thanksgiving Feast. Afterwards we had a devotional by the Church Humanitarian Director where he talked about all the stuff the church does around the world. After the Devotional we assembled 10,000 First Aid kits for the church to use. For our dinner, we had a brown paper bag filled with a stale turkey sandwhich and caffeine-free coke.It started to snow about an hour ago. The thermostat in our room doesn't work, so the room is always 65 degrees.Sam McGavin (From Arcadia Ward) is coming in to the MTC tomorrow. He is going to Peru. Kayla left last week, and Ryan Palmer comes in a few more weeks. Time flies by so fast here.Yesterday we were at the R.C., which is the place where we answer phones. We also call people to see if they got the items they requested and ask them if we can send missionaries over. Of the 12 referalls we go, I was able to get 2! I also talked to this lady who was a history teacher in Illionois, who said she was teaching her classes about Nauvoo and the Mormon movement, and showed all of her classes the Restoration DVD! I personally feel that the DVD is the best and most powerful one the church offers.I know it's a bit early, but here are some things that would be good Christmas gift ideas:1. Any or all CDs by Steven Sharp Nelson2. Any CDs of instrumental of hyms, preferably piano, violin or cello3. Lot and lots of stampsWell I have to go. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope cousin Josh's broken arm gets better soon.

December 4, 2007

Thanks for the packages, although I can't believe you trust me enough to send me Christmas gifts weeks in advance. My companion won't let me open them. I got the cookies last night.This week has been fairly normal. A few highlights were: one of the Hermana's in our district was getting a procedure done at the hospital and asked me to give her a blessing. We also were able to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional Sunday. It also snowed like crazy on Wednesday, and now all the snow has pretty much melted away.One big experience I had was yesterday the the Referral Center. Our goal as a district was to get 30 referrals in 1 1/2 hours, which is about 3 per person. We set this goal many days in advance, and I personally had been praying hard so that we could meet our goal. I was feeling confident because last time I got the most.What we do is call back people to make sure they got the things they ordered (DVDs, Bibles, Etc.) Most of the time we get answering machines, but if we get a live person, we usually (depending on the order) ask if we can send representatives over to deliver a Book of Mormon, and a message. As I was making calls, I was hung up on at least five times, I had people mad at met, etc. The time was almost up and I didn't have any referrals, and I was feeling kind of bad. Then, on my last call, I got a referral. We ended up with 25 total. Starting in January, our district gets to spearhead the live chat feature on Mormon.org.

For more information about the LDS Church, see

Elder Carreon

Seattle, Washington

The Articles of Faith

The Articles of Faith outline 13 basic points of belief of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Prophet Joseph Smith first wrote them in a letter to John Wentworth, a newspaper editor, in response to Mr. Wentworth's request to know what members of the Church believed. They were subsequently published in Church periodicals. They are now regarded as scripture and included in the Pearl of Great Price.THE ARTICLES OF FAITHOF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTSHistory of the Church, Vol. 4, pp. 535—541 1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. 2 We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression. 3 We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. 4 We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. 5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof. 6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth. 7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth. 8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. 9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. 10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. 11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. 12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. 13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.-Joseph Smith

DON'T MESS WITH TEXASIf you would like an email sent to you whenever a new blog is posted, please email torrimc@hotmail.com

Write to Elder Carreon at the address at the top of this blog, or, he can also receive an e-mail letter if you write one using Dearelder.com. The service will charge you the price of a stamp and will print and mail the letter for you.

He can receive e-mail but can't reply back (he has very limited computer time only one day a week) but he can write to you via snail-mail, so be sure to send a home address in your e-mail or letter so he can send you a reply.

Ryan's grandparents, Sandra and Ron Bean, just recently returned from an Humanitarian Mission in Uganda, Africa (November, 2008). Read about their experiences on their blog and view some amazing pictures, atBeanmission.blogspot.com or click directly on the link at the end of Elder Carreon's blog.